


Stepping Out

by failsafe



Series: Not Very Drastically Far: a series of snippets about where Clint and Natasha might have gone [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, F/M, Friendship, Partnership, Road Trips, Romance, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-22
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-12-03 05:53:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/694893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/failsafe/pseuds/failsafe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part One of a series of snippets for Jain about where Clint and Natasha ended up following The Avengers film when the Avengers dispersed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stepping Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jain/gifts).



The car moved for miles and miles, using hardly any fuel and just making a low, feline hum as its internal mechanisms shot it along the highways. Highways and then back roads through little towns with traffic lights at every other intersection, glowing and flickering gas station signs vying for attention. It was along one of these roads that Clint slowed and slid the sleek car into a parallel parking space with ease, swearing a little under his breath anyway as he fussed with the alignment.

When Clint turned back the key, shutting off the motor, Natasha lowered down her feet and found her shoes, tugging them back on.

She let herself out of the car and moved quickly around the front of the vehicle, catching up to Clint as he stepped up on the curb and took a walk down toward the corner where there was a once-shiny diner with too many glass windows all around it, glowing like a giant moth-catcher in the evening twilight.

“Hey,” she said as she reached out with her hand, her fingers grazing lightly against the suede jacket covering his arm. It was the first time she'd spoken in over an hour. She did that sometimes without even thinking, and he never really complained much. She knew he would have liked her to talk more. Usually, he made up for it. He hadn't, though.

“Hey, Tasha,” Clint replied, and it was too flat but he smiled as he glanced over to meet her gaze. “You want to grab something to eat?” he asked, his hand already stayed at the dull, long metal door handle.

“Looks like your mind is made up,” Natasha remarked, her lips upturning at the sides just a little as she took a step back and looked up at the neon cursive that spelled out the name.

“You want something else?” Clint asked, and she could hear the way his tone nearly broke with utterly disproportionate compassion.

“No, I'm just not sure I'll eat,” she said, but then judging from the look in his eyes, she might have just made it worse. She reached out and more deliberately grabbed at the back of his upper arm, reaching for the door handle herself and pulling as was instructed, triggering a little chime inside. There would have been a time, a long time ago, when _setting of an alarm_ like that would have made her flinch. She was completely steady and guided Clint inside. “I'm just still kind of tasting shawarma.”

“Oh come on,” Clint argued jovially as he cooperated by moving his feet before he finally took some volition and got up onto one of the worn, tiredly turquoise bar stools. “Woman like you?” he continued, reaching for her hand to help her up without any remark. Natasha certainly didn't need it, at all, but it was an offer of a hand not so much because she was petite—He had always known she could kill him, and he'd never for a moment stopped respecting it. He offered her a hand up onto the high stool because it was who he was, grasping threads and holding things together when other people thought they were too worn out for use. “Got a stomach like a steel trap,” he finished as she settled into the seat after a purely technical acceptance of his hand and he began to look at the flat, laminated menu.

“What's that supposed to mean?” she challenged, just to keep him talking. “Yeah, water, thanks—“ she answered distractedly when the elderly gentleman in an apron approached them to ask what they'd like to drink.

“Coffee,” Clint supplied for the same reason, and Natasha watched as he dug around somewhere inside and found a bright, winning smile for the man. She didn't know if she was imagining the weight ahead of the smile, but she had never known Clint to get and stay very low. He liked it closer up toward the sky, even when he was consorting with people in basements and warehouses and secret government complexes who lived their lives beneath fluorescent light and in the dark. People like the person she'd been born, raised to be. “Unless you got something stronger,” he added.

“I'm afraid not, young man,” the old man chuckled out, but he was won—just like that.

“It means,” Clint said, lowering the menu and turning to Natasha a little bit. His knee bumped hers and she didn't move, if anything looking a little more cleanly along the line of her shoulder and into his eyes. He hadn't forgotten her question. “Woman like you can take on anything. And has. A hamburger's got nothing on New York, or space aliens, or _gods_. Or me.”

Natasha was still and nodded, first taking in the compliment a little solemnly, but then she was grinning and finally laughing for just a moment. There were layers to it, and she narrowed her eyes as she tried to find the one that was flirtation. Mildly irritated, but only in jest, she jabbed her elbow into his suede sleeve as she drew the deep red translucent plastic of the water cup into her hands, feeling the cool condensation shoot through her hands though she didn't shiver.

“Nice to have you back,” she said, looking down and searching pointlessly for a reflection.

“I'm just sorry I left,” Clint said earnestly.

“... Hey,” Natasha scolded, and she would have thought they would have been over this by now. They were so many days and so many miles away. “Don't.”

* * *

She didn't know if he _didn't_ or if he _did_ after that, but some time later she just knew she saw him grin—a big, winning grin he didn't have to dig for—when she reached over with a white paper napkin from the side of her own plate to wipe a mixed smear of ketchup and mayonnaise from the side of his mouth.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> I have enclosed the most irrelevant to the rest of my gifts for you image here. I wanted to do some Steve/Tasha for you, too, but my writing muses churned out enough fic that I didn't quite have room to write it. I basically was trying to make this look more like artwork than a screencap and I'm not sure how well it went. I hope you enjoy your gifts!


End file.
